Reply To: Introduce Yourself and Chat

My name is Chris Green. I started reading Znet back in 1997, not long after I discovered Chomsky. I started patronizing the Znet forum system in 1998 where Chomsky, Albert and other intellectuals opened themselves to comments and questions from forum users. Over the years I’ve drifted off to other sites but I think it is fair to say that Znet has played a very significant role in my political education, particularly in my formative political years, roughly in the 1997-2003 period. owe Znet a considerable debt and I’d certainly like to give it a lot of money if I had the opportunity but I don’t think I’ll ever have a lot of money.

When Chomsky was on the old Znet forum system I sent him a great many questions and he probably responded to me about 70 percent of the time. In July 2013, I spent some time making comments on Znet about an article Chomsky had written in response to Slavoj Zizek’s slanders. I didn’t realize that Chomsky’s attention would be called to my comments and he would feel compelled to devote an article to responding to them. I was responding to what I felt was the notion that Chomsky/Herman were 100 percent correct in everything they wrote about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. I felt that his notion was not quite correct and wanted to clarify a few things. In any case, I’ve had the strong feeling that I should not have written the comments. On the other hand, right or wrong ,those comments were something that I honestly felt. I had no idea that Chomsky’s attention would be called to them and he would write an essay about it. Having Noam Chomsky write an essay in response to something I wrote is…..well, part of me really enjoyed the attention. I certainly venerate Chomsky and the fact that I got under his skin a little doesn’t make me very happy.

Several years ago I obtained a master’s degree in history. Since then, apart from several month standardized test scoring assignments, I’ve found it very hard to secure paid employment. In 2012 I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. My dad insisted I get this diagnosis so that entering the job market might be easy for me. The state Department of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) has not been very helpful because they believe I don’t need a lot of help. My dad and his girlfriend badgered the DVR to have me assigned to this firm headed by an industrial psychologist who supposedly specializes in getting jobs for autistic adults. However this guy turned out to be something of a charlatan, full of big talk and disingenuous claims about what he could do for me but who never got me any work. Now, after a year and a half of having my time wasted by this asshole and his staff, I’m being forced into other rout, including a community college program, which might produce better results. God only knows what my future holds.

I’ve spent the last few years as a member of my local chapter of the Socialist Alternative, the organization to which Kshama Sawant, the Seattle city councilwoman, belongs. I joined it and kept with because its is really the only radical left group in my area and is pretty intelligent and not crazy. In spite of me joining them, I’ve decided that I’m basically what I started out as: a libertarian socialist. I see some merit to the whole Trotskyist view of the world but I’ve come to really dislike the whole vanguard structure of Trotskyist groups. I like what Louis Proyect has written about the serious problems with Trotskyist organizations in the US.